COLOUR

having said last week i didnt want to think about colour ("comics rant") i thought about it and had a go. i'm going to do a full colour A7 minicomic and as its just one printed side of A4, i can do it all myself.

Round Jean-Claude Van Damme’s House

I never wanted to come here in the first place. I like JC, but his in-your-face machismo is too much for me at times. I’m from Yorkshire. The dinner party he had planned for the evening started off well enough- everyone else was there already and we had some Liebfraumilch and cheese straws.
The drawing room was tasteful enough in it’s décor, wood panelling, nice big telly, but the glass case full of pewter dragons with jewels seemed slightly incongruous (he later explained they were his ex-wife’s, and he didn’t have the heart to get rid of them).

So the first course, moules marinieres- I said “are these mussels from Brussels?” but no-one seemed to find it funny. The dining room has an impressive glass table and he has a bang and olufsen stereo (they cost a bomb!). Main- Coq-Au-Vin. A bit heavy on the wine but eatable. I got some gravy on my shirt which made me self-conscious and started to get the impression everyone was staring at me.

Pudding- Knickerbocker Glory. Delicious.

It was obvious that everyone was much more drunk than me and the party became ever more racy as the evening went on. One of the ladies started to take her clothes off. Although I am a red-blooded male and a fan of the female form, this was getting too rich for my blood. JC poo-pooed my protestations that this was getting out of hand- it seemed he was actively encouraging this sexiness! By this time other revellers were getting involved and I was getting very uncomfortable. I asked JC what his daughters would make of this debauchery, and shouted at everyone, calling them disgusting perverts or something (I was raging, I don’t know what exactly I said in the heat of the moment). He tried to calm me down, saying he thought that I would enjoy it, that I should “loosen up”, and so on. I left, and told JC not to call me again.

When I got home, I realised what a fool I’d been. Why do I always ruin sexy parties?

comics rant

I love comics, and everything they stand for. I got beano and buster as a young man, but the world of “adult” comics really passed me by until a few years ago, because I am a proper artist and that kind of thing is ignored at art school, on the fine art courses I’ve encountered anyway. This is a real shame I think, because, as most of you discerning readers out there will know there can be a massive amount of scope for all kinds of emotive devices, which are not at odds with what most fine art tries to do and invariably fails. Maybe I’m getting a bit off the point, but I know the kind of comics I make are well in tune with the point of view expressed in my paintings, but much more direct and blatant, which is probably where the humour lies.

Anyone who has tried to make a comic will know how hard it is, and the more involved and intricate you make it, the more the decisions you have to make multiply themselves. For example, if someone is on the phone, firstly can I draw a phone? Is the phone that I can draw without looking one up the right phone for the décor? If not can I find what that phone looks like, and if not, should I change the décor to match the phone? It’s a fucking phone! It doesn’t make any difference to the story, characters or anything. What does wallpaper look like? Yeah right. Try looking up wallpaper on google images and see how far you get. Christina Aguileira for your desktop, nothing at all drawable, some shitty jpeg that doesn’t show the pattern.

Plus perspective, making the characters look vaguely the same in each frame, lettering, the right balance of light and dark. I’ve not even thought about doing anything in colour, no thanks.

Anyway this was meant to be about how I came across the work of Dan Clowes in Falmouth College’s Art Library, which resonated with me and sparked an interest in what’s known as indie comics. I bought everything by Clowes I could lay my hands on- Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron being my favourite, that shit is fucked up.
From there I got into Chris Ware, whose stunning graphical work and historical detail demonstrates how hard he works to make a comic with every frame. His Acme Novelty Library (I know they’re all called that-the big red one I’m talking about) makes me shake my head with wonder like someone looking at something that they thought couldn’t be done and being proved wrong.

Anyway, I’ve got to make my tea (dinner) now, but I also like Tony Millionaire’s Sock Monkey, Michael Kupperman’s Tales Designed to Thrizzle (I want number 2, anyone got one?), Martin Cendreda’s Dang, Tom Gauld, Robert Crumb, Jeffrey Brown, plus many others.
I’ll probably talk about the small press people that I like later.

Yeah comics!

Grandma

here's a sneaky peak from my new strip done for a monkeys might puke anthology, and is grandma in the home after commiting a transgression. it looks a bit like whistler's mother (see i know about real art and that).

what's an insect's favourite tom jones song?

the green GREEN FLY of home!

What's the new?

This week, my cultural picks are

1) The Tales of Woodsman Pete by Lilli Carre
2) Eraser by Thom Yorke
3) Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki
4) The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stephenson

I can't be bothered reviewing them, i just liked them all, i know spirited away is quite old, but it was on the 100 greatest family films on sunday and i remembered how good it was so i went and bought it.

Stay tuned for more picks, but don't hold your breath because i hardly ever buy anything.

Why Don't You?

Friends, passers-by, on-lookers, greenhorns, bigots, foes, lovers, strangers, ne'er-do-wells, customers, the young-at-heart, gypsies etc. hear this, and mark these words well;

the aforementioned banal pig comics, jolly bear summer special and their sister publication man man and friends number 1 are now available at lit + neon, a fine boutique-cum-art-cum-music shoppe just off brick lane in shoreditch, east london.

Furthermore, these fine tomes are also available at Gosh Comics, Great Russell Street and the BookArtBookshop, Shoreditch (both London), Travelling Man in Bristol and Leeds, and other shops to be confirmed shortly.

i greatly appreciate all comments and critiques, any acts of support and of course purchases, so please check out these shops if you can, or check out the myspace and website linked on the right.

Thanks for listening pals,

C U Next Time xxxxx

Another Old Story and more ghost jokes

Mystery Ghost House



Four Teenagers are investigating a mystery. They are in a scary looking house, ripped curtains, cobwebs, dust, broken windows, everything. They split up, which is their first mistake. One of the boys, who has a dog, is left downstairs while the other three, two girls (one attractive, one plain) and the other boy look for clues upstairs.

Time passes. The boy with the dog has stopped looking for clues (he is the least enthusiastic mystery solver of the group) and is sat near the kitchen table, eating a hot dog he has procured from somewhere. He is disgruntled at being left with only a dog for company. The dog also eats a hot dog and then precedes to sniff around. Suddenly, the dog starts barking at something over the boy’s shoulder. He turns around and to see a man in a crude monster costume heading for him. The boy fails to see the gravity of the situation. He is grabbed by the masked figure who easily overpowers him. The boy stumbles in the struggle and as he falls, cuts his head on the edge of the table. He is knocked unconscious. The dog, although large, is not aggressive and clearly disturbed by the scuffle, tries to hide underneath the table. The dog cowers and involuntarily shits.

The costumed man runs upstairs to hunt down the others.


What budget car does a ghost drive? A DaeWOO! Matiz

What luxury car does a ghost drive? A B.M. Double-WOO!

What's a ghost's favourite 1980's soul combo? GHOUL and the gang!

Painting of children

Advertising Feature and Story

Hello Friends.

The picture accompanying this text is the front cover of Jolly Bear and Fun Coconut Summer Special, my latest comic
which has just been reprinted due to the success of the original limited edition run. It has a story about Jolly Bear living in squalor in Hackney, and also a story about Fun Coconut's pastimes, which include the film Basic Instinct- previews on my myspace page, linked on the right there----~

if you would like a copy, they cost £1.50 inclusive of UKp&p, please contact me for details. Don't forget, Banal Pig Comics 1 and 2 and Man Man comic are also available (check out the website, also linked, right.

Here's a short story i wrote once about being a cuckold.


Doodle



Just over a year ago, I was delivered the news that my wife was having an affair. This information I took to be true as the messenger was my wife herself, who chose to ring me at work at 1.07pm on a perspirant Monday. Before she broke the news I detected a tension in her voice and she seemed vague and troubled, but at the time my only concern was for her, and I asked what was wrong. Had I realised what was to come, I would have put my pen down and braced myself for the imminent and inevitable reaction stew of nausea, anger, humiliation and disbelief. Instead, believing this phone call to be nothing out of the ordinary, I was contentedly putting the finishing touches on a cartoon drawing of a man with a fancy top hat and huge comedy nose.

This may seem like a somewhat trifling detail compared with the news that the woman I loved was about to ruin my life, and so it should have been. But as my wife finally confessed I stared fixedly at the drawing, admiring its graceful curves and sublime blend of humour and pathos, and I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything. It was as if I had forgotten what it was like to feel emotion.

At this point, a sceptical reader may suspect that in fact I did not love my wife and my lack of concern was due to an ambivalence towards her. I assure you this was not the case, and although I cannot claim to be the most sensitive male on the planet, at the time I was deeply and honestly in love with her.

Seconds, minutes passed and my wife took my lack of a response for stunned silence. In reality I was in a state of bemusement waiting for the emotional numbness to give way to a terrible swelling of hatred or disgust, or anything. As I felt I needed to give some kind of response I gently put the phone down and sat back in my chair.
I thought that it must be shock and that at any moment I would burst into tears but my mind was as clear as it had ever been. I even tried to make myself angry by picturing my wife in the process of cuckolding me, but I remained strangely serene and all I could really think about was my drawing with its cheeky face.

I thought at first this lack of negative emotion was some kind of blessing, after all who wouldn’t prefer to strike misery from their roster of feelings? However, it was soon evident that happiness and satisfaction were also lacking from the place they formerly occupied in my life. All feeling gone from my life; with one exception. I felt something, like none of the old emotions, like a mixture of a mild orgasm and a sick feeling, but with many more unfamiliar and indescribable ingredients. And it was all when I looked at this drawing, this crumpled piece of notepaper, and the feeling was strong and palpable. When I looked away or shut my eyes it was gone within seconds, when I looked back at the paper there it was, strong, dark and addictive.

My life was much better when I was looking at the picture than when I wasn’t, so I took to staring at it for long periods; hours, days. I was aware that the cheap paper of the drawing was rapidly deteriorating into furry dust as I was handling it so much. I took photographs but the pictures didn’t have the same effect. They just looked like poor photographs of a scrag of paper. Photocopies were the same. It was the original or nothing.

I was resigned to losing my drawing to the ether, but before it went I decided to make the most of it and prepared myself for a marathon looking session. Finally, after four and a half days, my eyes burning and crusty, my bones aching and my skin raw, the picture finally vanished.

I fell asleep for a while, and had a shower. I thought to myself that I really should go back to work.

I fancy everybody- directors cut 2006

the following was originally on myspace but now its gone, but now its back, originally in two parts, here it is in all its glory.

i fancy:

Carol Vorderman
Jordan
The Queen
Margaret Thatcher
Patsy Kensit (in Lethal Weapon II)
Sarah Beeny
Sharon Stone
Clare Rayner
Keira Knightley
Christine Hamilton
Your Ugly Mum
Natasha Kaplinski
Sonia from Eastenders
Dannii Minogue
Lorne Spicer from Car Booty
Claire Sweeney
Trisha Goddard
Linda Lusardi
Gail from Coronation Street
Olive from On The Buses
Joan Rivers
Catherine Zeta Jones
Samantha Fox
Sally Gunnell
Naomi Campbell
Shannon Tweed
Estelle Getty from “Stop or My Mom will Shoot”
Margaret Beckett
Moira Stewart
Bella Emberg
Kate Lawler
Vanessa Feltz
That Colleen (Wayne Rooney’s Girlfriend)
Gillian Anderson from X Files
Teri Hatcher
Heather Small from M People
Dorian from Birds of a Feather
Nightshade from Gladiators
Hattie Jacques
The Sawalha Sisters
Kirsty Allsop from Location Location
Linda Bellingham
Sonia
Michaela Strachan
Jenny Agutter
Mad Lizzie
Cherie Blair
Anneka Rice
Diane-Louise Jordan
Rose West
Thora Hird
Condaleeza Rice
Patricia Routledge
Helen Daniels off Neighbours
Maureen Rhys from Driving School
Janet Street Porter
The mum off Back To The Future
Your Moaning Girlfriend
Leslie Ash (with trout pout)
Angela Lansbury
Marlene from Only Fools and Horses
Lisa Stansfield
Lynn Foulds-Wood
Princess Diana
That little black woman off Police Academy.


I fancy everbody.

top cat dad

this is a little bit from another new comic, a full length cat dad adventure. the comic will be split between the 60's style that bp fans will know from the previous stories in banal pig number 2, and a top cat pastiche, as seen here in rough form, where we get to see what cat dad gets up to and what he thinks about things, along with his friend benny (quite blatant top cat ripoff/homage, his ex-wife cissy seen here and his son alex from his marriage to cissy, who is obnoxious.

it probably should be explained that cat dads new family are humans, and his wife maintains that her son was fathered by the cat, leading to all sorts of fun and jollity when a social worker comes snooping....